


Out in the woods

by birbteef



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Gen, Grieving, Hurt/Comfort, June Darby is a good person and a better mom, Past Relationship(s), Transformer Sparklings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2018-10-08 10:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10385112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birbteef/pseuds/birbteef
Summary: June takes a hike and finds more than she bargained for in the woods. Knock Out deals with an unfortunate circumstance. Ratchet grieves for Optimus.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This piece has a fair amount of baby death and headcanons about Cybertronian baby gestation. 
> 
> This is technically an experiment to see if I can write a character piece where they interact and talk without actually using any dialogue.  
> It's going to be choppy and weird and not well written.  
> Unbeta'd

With access to the Autobot’s ground bridge she started hiking. It had always been a hobby but now she could travel anywhere she wanted. Ratchet had accompanied her once or twice, letting her drive till they were far enough out in the wilderness that he could transform and simply walk along beside her. He rarely tagged along now that Optimus was dead however; preferring to stay alone at the base at just wait for her request for the ground bridge. 

She felt weird about going off on her own, but knowing she could immediately contact the medic should anything go wrong helped put her at ease. The area she picked for the day was in the pacific northwest, deep within the mountainous forests. It was an area she had hiked a few times before, marvelling at the redwood trees and easily she was able to move along the ground with such little cover. It was severely unpopulated, aside from a lack of humans she barely saw any wildlife either. A few birds and maybe a squirrel or two, but for the most part it was deeply quiet and lonely.

That day though, is when things started getting interesting. It was slightly overcast, not that it made much of a difference beneath the dense covering of trees. She had taken the path of a dry creek bed, walking along the old water smoothed rocks with no destination in mind. She was just going till she felt tired and then would call Ratchet like normal. Except this time, something drove her to keep walking. 

She heard a distant scraping noise. Sharp but muffled scrabbling followed by prolonged silence before it started again. She had never heard anything quite like it and decided to investigate. When she finally stepped out of the creek bed and up onto the banks she finally saw what she had been looking for. A brief flash of red underneath the dark shadows of looming trees gave visage to the almost imperceptible scraping. She couldn’t tell what it was, but she pressed on forwards, leaving the river behind her.

The little clearing she came across was not at all what she had expected. How she had the inopportune luck to find it, she would never know. The trees had been roughly cleared on jagged edges and stacked up into a terrible effigy pile. A pit had been dug right down in the middle of the rough clearing with little mounds surrounding the area that reminded her of the sweet potato planting she used to do. In the middle of it though, the worst part, was that cherry red con who had kidnapped her almost a year ago.

She knew he had been missing, captured on The Nemesis at one point but now considered missing in action. He was wanted, in general, for war crimes but also because he was a doctor of a species with so few doctors left. No one expected him to leave, with the way things were headed she knew it was likely he was going to be pardoned of his crimes so he could get to work taking care of the injured and sick that were returning to cybertron. Ratchet couldn’t do it alone (which, after the death of a partner like Optimus, no one expected him to), so most of the job was falling on the hands of scouts and generals with first aid experience.

June didn’t know many of the details other than it was getting to be a dire situation, and Ratchet seemed to be more tired than ever.

Knock Out was on his hands and knees, face close to the ground and heaving as though he would vomit. He patted the top of one of the mounds, compacting the soil down tightly into a perfect little cone. He then turned, digging a new little hole into the soft earth as he wheezed. She watched with rapt attention, understanding that she knew nothing of whatever he was doing. After a moment she decided to sit down in a nearby bush and keep surveillance for a while, he seemed distracted enough he wouldn’t notice her.

The hole he dug was fairly shallow, just a scrape or two of his hands deep. He patted the sides of it to make sure they were flat and smooth. His chest split and he whined a deeply painful moan, light spilled from inside himself as he reached one of those long clawed hands within his chest and dug around. The strange chug-scraping noise started up, his engine and vents taxing themselves to the limit.

Eventually he pulled out a little speck of light between two fingers and gave it a good look over as the noise died down again and his chest closed. The light was twisting and turning in his claws, inspecting and prodding it from every angle before putting it into the little hole he had dug like a seed. He lovingly covered it up with dirt, pressing his face close to it like she had seen with the other one, whispering something soft to the little mound before turning and scraping up a new hole, looking nauseous all the while. 

She watched him do this several times, each time investigating the little light and then so gently placing it into the dirt. Most of them were fine but a few caused him a pained expression after the investigation and she watched with horror as he gently crushed them in his hands, treating the evaporating speck of light with so much care as it fizzled into nothing. By the end of it she counted roughly thirty mounds, and Knock Out looked absolutely exhausted. 

She had no idea what he had actually just done, but she had her fair amount of guesses. Defragmentation was a possible idea, she knew machines had to clean themselves somehow, and physically removing any illness was her initial idea of what he was doing. But the care he was treating them with, she couldn’t figure out any reason that he would be doing that if it were illness. As time went on she realized she knew better.

She didn’t know how to come to terms with the fact she knew she just watched an alien give birth, nor what she should actually do about it. But clearly she knew there was no other explanation for what she had just seen. Ratchet had given her a very brief idea of what happens to their children as they gestate simply to point out the differences in their biological structures. She didn’t realize that when he said they come from the ground that means someone must have put them in the ground in the first place.

Knock Out laid on his side, gently running his hands over his chest as if to soothe himself. June assumed this likely wasn’t something he was supposed to have done alone, but it’s not like there was any other ‘cons around to help him. After a while he seemed to fall asleep there, rumbling gently among his little mounds. She worried her bottom lip between her teeth, making a mental note of where this was. June slowly crept from the bush and headed back to the river bed, it was getting late anyway. 

\--

Ratchet greeted her as unenthusiastically as always, and she opened her mouth to tell him what she had seen before stopping herself. The ‘con wasn’t hurting anyone, and they hadn’t had any reports of strange activity in the area. He surely wasn’t doing anything too bad, and she knew better than most how hard it was to be a single mother. She gave Ratchet a gentle smile and went on home, deciding that she would return to the area at a later date.

\--

Next week she asked Ratchet to bring her to the same location. She had an excuse prepared about how she just really liked the area and how it spoke to her, but he didn’t ask. She decided to save it for another day. As she stepped through the portal.

The air was foggy and dense with humidity. It was cold, and she found herself wishing she had brought a thicker jacket. The trees rustled quietly, but still there was no sign of animals in the general vicinity. The oppressive loneliness grew around her as she hiked. She wondered briefly if this was some sort of subconscious protection Knock Out was able to project to ward off intruders from the area. She figured she would ask Ratchet more about it later if he was looking up to some small talk. 

She stepped out of the river bed and took the short trek to the clearing she had seen before, glad that she remembered where it was. Knock Out was gone for the time being, likely doing whatever it was that robots do when they’re not nest-sitting. 

She stood next to the same bush she had last time, eyeing the clearing closely for changes. A few of the mounds had been noticeably smashed down, and her heart hurt for whatever reason that had to have taken place. Most of them seemed exactly the same as they had been before though, haphazard little half-spheres poking up out of the ground. The area in the middle looked compacted and worn, and she suspected this is where Knock Out had been either sleeping or spending most of his time. After all, it’s where he had fallen asleep the last time she had seen him.

She listened diligently for a few good moments and did not hear the gentle thundering of giant footsteps that accompanied the bots even at their quietest. June decided to sneak forwards a little more to get a closer look, stopping every few paces to listen again. She entered the ring of mounds and found that it was surprisingly warm, each one emitting a small bit of heat that combined made the whole area quite comfortable. 

She left as quickly and carefully as she came.

\--

Ratchet didn’t have much information for her on the specifics of their child gestation. They were planted in the ground and absorbed minerals from the soil. He kept iterating about sentio metallico and the need to have radiation from the moon, but June admittedly understood next to nothing about what he was talking about and he was well aware. She left with very little more information, but thanked him anyway. He seemed to be in a slightly better mood after getting to talk about something he was interested in and she was glad.

\--

Some carefully planted questions over the next few days got her a little bit more information. They didn’t take that long to gestate in the ground, only a matter of weeks. And apparently even though the number planted was usually high, the survival rate was extremely low. Ratchet was starting to get curious about why she was asking so much and June had to make a quick excuse about wanting to know how they were going to repopulate Cybertron. With the rest of the team gone, he’s the only one she had to ask. 

The response she was given wasn’t what she had expected. They needed partners to do it that way. The way she had been describing. Most of the time they relied on the Well, and since Optimus’s death, the Well had been rekindled, lighting sparks in hot spots all across Cybertron. 

He looked so haunted when he explained this to her, she dropped it immediately even though it was the information she wanted the most. 

\--

The next time she visited the mounds there was a significant change. Over half of them had been smashed, and Knock Out lay prone in the middle. June wasn’t in the habit of guessing how Cybertronians felt but he looked...bad. She didn’t know very much about him at all. But the fact he liked to take care of himself was one of the few things she had picked up from their brief interaction before.

He did not look like a mech that had been taking care of himself. He was scratched and covered in dirt, the high polish he once sported was worn down to a sheer dull finish and completely gone in some places. Somehow, she guessed, the worst part of it was his color itself looked off. She knew they got painted on their exteriors but still had a certain amount of chromatophores natural to their plating that could shift and change color as needed. She knew that allowed them a certain degree of camouflage and the ability to change form easier. It’s what allowed the deep rich hues that they naturally sported, much nicer than regular car metal and one of the easiest ways to guess who was a cybertronian in their alt modes.

Knock Out’s color did not look great in that sense. It was almost ashen, the rich crimson red she remembered dulled down to nearly a dusty rose. She felt she had to help him, somehow. Living like this, however it was, clearly wasn’t doing him any favors. No cover, no protection from the elements, exposed as he was? Was he even eating? She couldn’t remember if there were any energon deposits in the area, most of them centering more around the southwest.

She stepped from behind her bush with the intent of going to him but he sat up with a groan, rubbing the back of his head with one of his very sharp clawed hands. She froze, terrified of him seeing her even though she was just headed down there to help him. She didn’t even know what she would have done, but she was a nurse and a mother herself and the need to make sure that he and his children made it through this was overwhelming, even through her fear. 

He dug around in his wrist wires for a few moments before tugging sharply on something like one would a lawnmower ripcord. He hissed audibly through his teeth as energon started to flow freely from the point of contact onto the mounds where it was absorbed. June was horrified, gasping slightly at the shock. 

He make a sort of whirring noise, turning his head to her slightly to let her know that he had in fact heard her. He made no effort to move though, and he let the glowing blue liquid seep into the different mounds, feeding them one at a time. After half had been fed he cleared his throat, an odd action for a robot, and told her that she could come out. After all he already knew she was there.

She made no effort to move till he cast an exhausted look in her direction. Recognition flashed in his eyes as he realized he knew her, kidnapped her and her not-boyfriend at one point. He chuckled at this, knowing she was no threat to him and kept feeding. 

She stepped up lightly, feeling the waves of heat coming off the mounds much more intensely than the last time she was here. He made no effort to move her, which she found odd. Eventually he spoke up as he stilled the dripping from his wrist, all the children fed. He knew she was alone, and thus was no more a threat to him or the sparklings than a bird might be. She nodded slowly, not entirely understanding but greatly relieved he wasn’t hostile. 

He had no reason to be hostile. The war was over, any threats of violence, or actual harm, against her would just draw unneeded attention to him and his brood. He just wanted to raise them in peace, that’s all. She told him he’s a wanted criminal. He said that every one of them is a criminal, they were all at war after all. Criminality just depends on who won in the end. 

She told him that there were sick and injured on Cybertron. That there were Cybertronians who needed his help as a doctor. That he would likely be pardoned if he offered his aid. 

He told her he was a cosmetic surgeon, and that the Decepticons had run out of true doctors a long time ago. She didn’t know what to do with that information. He could still help. He let out a hollow and deeply unhappy laugh. He couldn’t help. It would be several weeks before he could leave, provided any of his children survived this planet.

They minerals weren’t right. The soil was rich and full of good things, but not the right things, and not the right amounts. The sun cast radiation on them, but not nearly enough, even with the trees cleared out of the way. He didn’t think any of them would make it. But if they did, if they did, he would help them.

She told him he looked like shit. He gave her his first genuine laugh. He had been looking for food. There was no food here. Feeding the kids was making him sick. He showed her his wrist with the rip cord. Showed her where the energon came from. Told her he may starve before they hatch. 

She immediately decided that wasn’t going to happen. He laughed again, a genuine fondness for her and her tenacity. He told her it would likely be fine, especially if they kept dying off as quickly as they had been. Then he could leave and go hunt energon properly instead of eating mildly enriched nickel deposits and copper veins.

She asked if she could tell Ratchet and for once true fear crossed his visage. Under no circumstances would he want that to happen. Truly, he had no control over it and if she did decide to tell him there was ultimately nothing Knock Out could do about it. He got as close as she suspected he ever would to begging her not to. He could work it out on his own. It would be fine.

She guessed he was right, ultimately, but she didn’t like it. There was nothing stopping her other than the fact he truly did not want her to, and that he also had not been causing any trouble here. She asked him why the mounds were smashed, he told her the children in them had died. It was to be expected, not even on Cybertron did a whole batch ever live. He didn't expect any of them to live here.

She left after their conversation had drawn to a close, telling him she would return relatively soon. He shrugged, waving her goodbye surprisingly friendly. 

\--

Ratchet absolutely did not keep track of how much energon they had stored in the base. Maybe at one point he would have cared, but there were such bigger problems at hand that a large cache of energon that only he was getting into for food was hardly worth looking after. 

June found sneaking out small portions at a time actually surprisingly easy. What was more difficult was getting them out to Knock Out. The amount she could hold and the amount the average cybertronian drank were drastically different. She knew even a little bit would help though, and took what she could without making a noticeable difference. She figured that technically stealing goods from Autobots to help out an ex-Decepticon wouldn’t look very good on her if she was found out. 

\--

Knock Out was gone again when she brought the energon a few days later. She was extremely pleased to see a small pile of the unprocessed blue crystals laying near the tree effigy he had made from clearing out the area. Looks like he had some luck after all. She counted the remaining mounds and to her relief, there were still the same amount left. She left the cubes next to his little pile and returned home.

\--

Ratchet actually seemed a little better when she returned. They had a nice conversation about her hike and she told him about some mushrooms she saw. 

He said he would like to join her sometime soon. He said he missed it. He missed a lot of things. She was glad, truly, but also terrified. 

She felt herself fall sick with worry as she went home for the evening. 

\--

At home, Jack presented her with a scholarship to a very nice college he would be attending in the fall. It was governmental. Full ride. She decided she would ask Fowler about it later, as she had her suspicions. She was proud regardless, and kissed her son on the forehead. She would miss him.

She told him to worry about the rest of highschool first. He still had a month left. She couldn’t believe how fast time flew by.

\--

She went back and forth over the next few weeks. She would go other places as well, to try and make sure Ratchet didn’t think she just only liked going to the pacific northwest in that specific spot. Plus she did like the other sights, and it reminded her why she liked doing this in the first place.

Knock Out was getting worse. He was sick, actively. Half starved and too stubborn to find or build some sort of shelter to live under he exposed himself to the chilly air. If he was there when she visited he was always huddled up with his brood, leeching their warmth. She brought him food, not enough to make him healthy by a long shot, but enough that he was grateful for it. She saw him gnaw and gag on the raw crystals, trying to scrape at least something from them. 

Bulkhead had taught her a long time ago about their refining process, and the fact they technically didn’t have to refine them. It was just so hard to eat the unrefined crystals that turning them into a liquid was the ideal way to consume them by far. Plus it drew out impurities and toxins that would be harmful to their systems. 

Knock Out had no such equipment and beat the crystals on a rock, shattering them till he could pick up the flakes and try to gleam something from them. June could tell it was undignified and embarrassing for him to do so she didn’t comment on it. The state of his finish was humiliating enough, she wouldn’t add more pain to it. 

They carried on like this for several weeks.

\--

Knock Out only spoke of Breakdown once. June had formed opinions about him based on Bulkhead’s stories, but the soft sad tone Knock Out said he missed him changed her mind a little. She had asked who was the Sire and got the answer she suspected. She didn’t know they were bonded though, apparently very few did. He said Breakdown would have wanted them and that it was a shame he hadn’t even known Knock Out was sparked. They always intended Breakdown to carry, for him to brood, for him to protect the nest. After the war. After things were ok.

\--

Ratchet was not there when she went back to the Autobot’s base a few days later. It worried her slightly, but she knew how to activate the groundbridge from seeing Raf do it, and let herself go through. She had Ratchet’s comms and could call for a pick up, she was sure. If nothing else and worse came to worse she could call Fowler and ask for ride home in his helicopter. Maybe she would ask him anyway. 

She crested the curve of the clearing to see Ratchet. She clasped her hand over her mouth so as not to make a single sound. He hadn’t been looking at the mounds, of which there were only three left. Instead he was kneeled over Knock Out who was laying on the ground streaked with pale splashes of energon. 

Ratchet’s hands were searching over his frame, pausing in places to take pressure readings. He turned to June as if he had known she was there the whole time and surprisingly calmly asked her how long he had been out here.

She told him five weeks, and that the babies were going to be ready soon, maybe ready now.

Knock Out gasped on the ground, his frame shuddering and plates flaring as he slowly brought himself back online. He made no effort to get up and Ratchet placed a heavy foot in the middle of his chest, keeping him there.

June could hear his systems struggling from where she was and knew he wouldn’t be putting up a fight. Knock Out spoke in Neocybex, begging for something and trying to plead with Ratchet. The older doctor simply nodded, taking his foot off the sports car. Knock Out didnt stop begging, rolling to his side to stare pale eyes through Ratchet. 

Ratchet however made his way over to the three mounds left, taking a good look at them before digging his hands into one and pulling the dirt away. June yelled, rushing in from her place to try and stop him but halted as soon as ratchet pulled out a tiny white blob. He cleaned it off, brushing away dirt and debris and then gently handed it to Knock Out who had crawled his way over. 

The little thing made noises at him while Ratchet unearthed the other two. June could only liken it to a mix of early default computer bings mixed with gentle kitten cooing. She didn’t know what she expected them to look like, human babies maybe, but they were all basically just blobs with little nubs on them. Two were porcelain white, one was a deep burnt orange, much smaller than the other two. Ratchet mentioned offhandedly that one should have cooked a little longer, but it would be alright.

They would have to do something about this. June got the impression that successfully raising Cybertronian children like Knock Out had was some sort of feat based on how Ratchet was reacting. There was a respect there she had not seen from the doctor.

\--

They all returned to the Autobot’s base. Knock Out was placed in the medical ward with several IVs and a good pair of stasis cuffs. He fell asleep halfway through Ratchet reading him his rights. The babies pooled themselves up against his neck, chittering and warbling softly at each other.

Ratchet eventually fed them while Knock Out slept, taking the little things one by one to his wrist where they latched onto wires and drank from him. He told June they were drinking more than they should have. They had likely been just as starved as Knock Out. 

\--

By the next day they already looked more like June was expecting. They had little faces and strong little arms with claws that they used to cling to each other. Ratchet didn’t want her getting close, they were sweltering hot and had the tendency to grab. He didn’t want them burning her. 

Knock Out also looked much better. His plating was still awful from weeks in the wild, but his normal deep color was back, and his eyes lit up attentively as he made little chirps to his children. He did not fuss about the stasis cuffs, taking what June said earlier about the potential pardon to heart. 

\--

Ultra Magnus came later in the day trailed by two bots June had never seen before. While Ultra Magnus entered the medbay to talk with the captive, the other two were left outside. They were both black and white, one looked as though he lived with a perpetual stick up his ass and the other just seemed like a normal guy. They had only a rough grasp on english, apparently not been on Earth enough to truly download a language basis from the internet, just as much as they could gleam from browsing. They communicated fine with June, but she knew there was something more going on when Ultra Magnus stepped out of the medbay. All four of them, Ratchet included, discussed in hushed Neocybex about what would happen. June wished to know desperately, but kept herself in check. It wasn’t her place, no matter how much she wanted it to be.

They left soon after, whole trip taking less than twenty minutes. Ratchet explained to her that when Knock Out was deemed healthy he would go to trial for war crimes. He would be pardoned of war crimes. Then he’ll be expected to work as a doctor. June asked about the children. Ratchet told her they were unprecedented. Children hadn’t been a thing for...years. The fact that they could be born on Earth even with the differences in climate was a huge discovery. 

June asked what would happen to them. Ratchet looked at her confusedly, telling her that they would stay with Knock Out, of course. She let out a sigh of relief, glad they wouldn’t be taken. 

\--

Knock Out stayed there for two weeks. The children grew fast, eventually little spots of plating starting to show on their little soft bodies by the time he said goodbye to June. She wouldn’t say there were friends, not quite, but they were pleasant enough to one another that she did regret seeing him go. He was escorted through the space bridge by the two matching bots she had seen earlier, his kids clinging to his armor seams like little lumps. They coo'd as she waved goodbye.

\--

On her next hike, Ratchet came with her.


	2. and home again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things continue. Nothing is good. Nothing is bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't expect to make a second chapter to this but the inspiration just struck me I guess. Unbeta'd just like last time. It's not...sad, persay, but it's not happy either. Its just kind of a character exploration.

Knock Out was back within a week of the trial. Apparently things had gone correctly and he was pardoned of his war crimes, with the expectation that he would start to work immediately after. 

What was not expected was the refusal of almost all the patients to see him. His carefully crafted reputation among neutrals and Autobots as a mad butcher of a doctor left them less than enthused to see him when they needed help, most outright refusing to be treated by someone who was once the Decepticon CMO. While both June and Ratchet understood Knock Out’s skills were perfectly fine and all the problems were entirely rumor it was troubling that clearly no real peace had been achieved.

Rumor was enough to have him escorted back to Earth by Ultra Magnus personally. June would have laughed at the irony if it were someone not as scary as the Autobot commander. His frustration that they’d already pardoned the doctor so they couldn’t legally lock him up was very clear. 

Instead he was on probation. On Earth. With June and Ratchet and the kids; both his and the humans. 

\--

Ratchet seemed mildly annoyed that he was supposed to look after him, but June could also tell there was almost a sense of relief about it. Ratchet wouldn’t be the only Cybertronian on Earth any more so when the military came to ask him about random Cybertronian nonsense he didn’t always have the answers to maybe finally someone else would be able to answer. 

Knock Out almost didn’t seem to care as far as June could tell. He was very preoccupied with three crawley little beans and seemed happy enough to just have a place he was going to stay that had food for them. The little children surely didn’t care at all and just bit at him in teething annoyance they weren’t being given active and constant attention. 

\--

Agent Fowler didn’t bring it up when they had dinner that evening. June was grateful he’d rather talk about anything than work. Both his own and hers. She could tell he was stressed about it though, and knew likely all the agents that knew of Knock Out’s presence were stressed. The same thing from Cybertron really. He had no reason to act out but the simple fact he was there was enough to warrant some safety measures.

He took her to a restaurant she’d never even heard of and ate food she would never dreamed of affording on her own. She went home with a blush and a kiss on her cheek, heart pounding in an infatuation she hadn’t felt in years.

\--

Jack was not so keen on having Knock Out at the base. He didn’t know what he expected the ex-con to do but just sit around and watch movies with Miko and Raf wasn’t exactly that. He had expected Knock Out to be...edgy. Constantly doing things, constantly plotting, more like a villain than...this exhausted dad that liked to watch films. 

Knock Out gave him a tired look any time Jack would question him about it. What would he expect to happen? If he did anything even remotely dangerous Ultra Magnus would personally see to it he’d never see the light of day again. He had the first sparklings any Cybertronian had seen in years, and that was the only reason Ratchet hadn’t shot him immediately on seeing him. It was the only reason any of them hadn’t shot him. 

Jack didn’t really like that answer but so far he hadn’t done anything else to prove otherwise.

\--

Regardless of his defection from the Decepticons Knock Out understood perfectly where his place was within the ranks. He was not an Autobot. He was a defector and a traitor to a losing cause and the only thing keeping him alive is that he had the children of a dead Con who also happened to be a traitor to the Autobot cause. His position was temporary and unstable and he knew he wouldn’t do anything to rock the boat so long as he was given a roof over his head and food. That was good enough and he now understood he wasn’t able to provide those things for himself, let alone for the sparklings.

\--

The sparklings liked Miko. She was loud and colorful and moved a lot. Knock Out tended to just sit in the corner with the TV unless he was going for a drive, so having someone that would run around with them was fun. They were growing fast, already they had legs and plating and could speak in the estimation of words. It would be maybe a few months before they were done growing, but the kids were amazed at how fast Cybertronians developed. 

Knock Out thought about giving them a lesson in Cybertronian comparative anatomy to humans at some point but knew they weren’t really as fascinated by the mechanics of it as they were the fact it was happening. 

They were nearly as big as the children were, though rounder and thicker by far. Their body temperature had cooled to around 105F and would no longer leave burns where they grabbed. They were still grabby though, and all the humans who visited the base at one point found themselves pulled into a tight hug from a sparkling that really didn’t know better.

\--

Knock Out wasn’t...well. The long stretch of time malnourished and anemic in the woods had taken it’s toll on him. Ratchet was tangentially aware of how inactive he had been around the base and how much energon he drank but he wasn’t entirely aware of how bad it was till he came to the common area to find Knock Out asleep and the sparklings just gone. 

They were found easily enough by just tapping some pipes together to make a fun noise so theyd come running, but Ratchet was far more concerned with the fact it took Knock Out several moments to realize what the problem was. He was slow to boot up, slow to react, and slow to process. All things that a racing frame with a well functioning processor should not have. His color had come back but seemingly everything else had not.

Which had them now in Ratchet’s lab, doing some small tests on him while he protested he was fine. They both knew he wasn’t; but Ratchet knew more than anyone how difficult doctors could be. To be someone who was supposed to be able to keep others healthy and then turn around and not be able to do that for yourself was such a stereotypically common thing amongst Cybertronian doctors Ratchet would have laughed if it wasn’t such an issue. Himself included.

He wasn’t fine. It was all the same problems as before just exacerbated by the stress of going to cybertron for the trial and coming back and having the sparklings drink from his wrists all the time. They were bleeding him dry and Ratchet decided they needed to drink from cubes, even if their systems weren’t quite ready for non-processed energon. 

Knock Out clearly didn’t like that idea but also was smart enough to know better than argue. 

\--

They wound up talking. Mostly about medicine but also about other things. Ratchet learned that he really didn’t know that much about Knock Out at all. He asked about the children’s sire, their blue and orange plating leaving no guesses as to who they had come from. Knock Out only gave him a sad look, telling him he wished things had been different. 

Ratchet shrugged, still getting over the feeling of emptiness Optimus’ absence left him. He knew all too well what Knock Out was talking about, maybe even not as much. Knock Out and Breakdown hadn’t been bonded but apparently they had meant to, once the war was over. They had courted and had plans for a future that ended prematurely.

Ratchet never had plans like that. He didn’t even know if Optimus felt the same way about him as he did because they never talked about it and Ratchet had never acted. He suspected that the Prime did, but suspicions and actions were not the same things. There was a jealousy he couldn’t get over as he finally released Knock Out from the lab. Jealousy over a dead partner, he felt pathetic. Breakdown hadn’t just died, he’d been brutalized before and after his death. Worn like a second skin to parade around by the same people who had vivisected him. Ratchet didn’t know how Knock Out could handle it.

\--

June took less walks. She found her time preoccupied with Agent Fowler and the sparklings. Knock Out slept a lot and Ratchet certainly wasn’t good with children, which left her to take care of them. Each time Knock Out would wake and see that she had been doing so he apologized profusely, stating that he didn’t mean to fall asleep again. June remembered how tired she had been after Jack was born, and didn’t really blame him at all for needing the rest, let alone that he was apparently anemic on top of that according to Ratchet. 

June considered them friends at this point. They spent enough time together gossiping and talking about their day that she had no other term for it. He was interested in her life, in how humans went about their day to day activities and what they did for fun. None of the other robots had been as actually interested in humans as he was. 

As much fun as watching movies on the TV seemed to be she could tell he was sick of it. He seemed rather cooped up in the base, even if he was allowed to go on drives he was too tired most of the time to actually go do it. 

He told her of the dates he used to go on to human drive in theaters. He liked the horror movies the best but Breakdown was too easily freaked out, old war paranoia got into his head too easy for him to watch scary things. He liked the action movies, large men with larger guns doing horrible things to cars and women. Knock Out could take it or leave it but wished he had let Breakdown see more of them. 

June decided she would take him along on one of her walks if he was feeling up to it. Fresh air that wasn’t the desert would do him some good. Also getting the sparklings acquainted with outside was probably a good idea.

\--

Agent Fowler took her out again. It was the first time since a few years before her divorce she’d actually felt like something good may come of a relationship. She held his hand across the table as they talked over their dinner.

They kissed on the hood of her car like highschool children who didnt know what they were doing. She drove home with a kind of smile on her face and a preoccupation on her mind that hadn’t been there in years. She’d missed this. This feeling of infatuation and playfulness that came with dating.

\--

Ratchet was having dreams. They were about Optimus, in another place and another time. With him, and him alone, together. They spoke of things that hadn’t happened, and Ratchet didnt understand how he was able to keep up with the conversation. It was all in stars, an unreal place that didnt exist. He would wake up gasping, vents heaving in draws of thick air to try and quell his burning frame. Burning from what, he didn’t know. He didn’t believe in Primus or precognitions or anything like that nonsense.

He couldn’t help but feel Optimus was not gone, and considered his sanity for a very real amount of time for thinking such a ludicrous thought. He’d seen him give himself to the well. He’d seen him die. Optimus was not coming back, no matter how his dreams wanted to play it.

\--

Knock Out loved the shore June had taken him to. His children splashed each other in the tidepools and pointed at animals, respectfully leaving them alone. Knock Out waded into the Ocean, letting the waves batter his frame as he stared off into the sea. Though he hadn’t really done much to let himself get stressed, it was still relaxing. He didn’t know he needed to relax. He thought that was all he did any more with watching movies on that little screen. This was far better.

June had wanted to take a walk but was fine with just playing on the beach with him. Agent Fowler had wanted to come but work came first. June promised him they’d go together some other time. 

One sparkling brought her a clump of seaweed which she graciously accepted and set aside. They were almost as big as she was now, and could speak in full sentences. The sentences were a little limited and childish, but the development was rapid. Knock Out said they’d pick their names soon. Probably within the week, perhaps.

\--

Knock Out was doing much better after they’d weaned the children off his wrist port. His body was actually able to process the energon for itself and he started to become much more alert after a few days, but both he and Ratchet knew it could take a lot longer for him to really feel alright again though, even if he insisted he was fine. 

\--

Interacting with his children was the only time any of them had ever seen Knock Out be sweet. He coo’d and groomed them all the time, answering their silly little questions and kept them as safe as he could. Not that anything was going to happen to them in the bunker but it was still a good thing to do. He adored them. He loved them in a way Ratchet had previously thought the callous sport car incapable of. He’d almost killed himself in the wild to keep them alive and there was not a doubt in Ratchet’s mind he’d do it again if he had to. 

Ratchet was glad. Cybertronians didn’t have a reputation for being doting parents. Often children could be left at the well to have it take care of their offspring for them so they wouldn’t have to. It was just something that wasn’t always expected of them. Ratchet suspected this was one of many reasons that the rate of their species population decline was so great. 

Typically they left their carrier after a few months if the carrier bothered to care in the first place. Ratchet wondered if these children would leave, though. Something told him they’d stick around, like Earth children do. 

\--

Ratchet’s dreams didnt stop. He’d wake up with a terrible charge in his frame and a need to release, haunted by visions of Optimus’s mouth pressed gently to his frame. He wanted to forget Optimus. He wanted to forget his pain and longing that he’d never acted on the love he’d wanted for so long and lost with the indecision to act. 

\--

The first child to choose their name was Road Rage. It took all Knock Out had not to laugh at the self imposed edginess of it. At the same time of the name decision she told him she was a femme, which he had suspected before but was glad for the confirmation of it. The other two still hadn’t decided on anything, but knock out had a feeling they would choose soon. 

The other two approached him the next day with the designations of Wildbreak and Tracks. He told them they didn’t have to choose just because their sister did. They were allowed to change at any time if they wanted. They assured him they’d been talking about it for a while. It was a decision they’d made together. 

\--

Miko was going home to Japan soon and it had the other kids in knots. They knew they could visit her at any time with the ground bridge, but it wouldn’t be the same. Knock Out watched them hug each other goodbye, not understanding at all what the issue was but was quiet about his misunderstanding.

\--

He took them to Japan himself the first time, knowing Ratchet would stick out like a sore thumb and needing to take a drive. His kids were old enough now they didn’t need someone to look over them, and mostly spent the day transforming in and out of their new tiny alt modes to try and impress each other. They were almost at Knock Out’s chest now. He couldn’t believe how fast time went by.

\--

Jack had graduated highschool and was set to attend a very nice college in the fall. June happily showed the pictures to Ratchet, the graduation seemed so menial to him but he watched all the same, something almost like pride coming up when june thanked him for watching over her son.

\--

Ultra Magnus arrived without warning about a week later. He wanted to speak with Knock Out alone. June worried her hands and tried to calm his children, telling them she didn’t know what was going on either. 

Ultra Magnus left as quickly as he had came, thanking Ratchet for use of the room, and leaving like he had never been there.

Starscream was alive. Ultra Magnus didn’t think Knock Out knew anything about it but wanted to be sure, extending his probationary period on Earth until the con had been found. Knock Out would have been lying if he said he wasn’t secretly glad about the extension. At least here he had some place to live. On Cybertron? He had no doubts it would be a month before someone tried to kill him. For all he cared he hoped he stayed on Earth forever. Even if he was technically trapped.

\--

It was a while before one of the kids left. Road Rage said she wanted to go. She wanted to see Cybertron and experience space. Tracks quickly decided he wanted to go with her. Wildbreak wanted no such thing and stuck very close to his dad as he kissed his other two goodbye and let them leave. They were under no probation. They were allowed to do as they liked. 

Bulkhead sent him a message within the hour telling him they’d arrived through the space bridge and were being taken to immigration services, technically being considered Earthlings and all. They were apparently the talk of the town on Cybertron, and Knock Out prayed to Primus that they would be safe. 

\--

Wildbreak was really too sweet for his own good. Knock Out knew he would get hurt or taken advantage of eventually. When he finally told his father he found a group of friends online, the Stunticons, that he was going to go join for a while Knock Out only smiled, knowing nothing good would come of it. But like the others he was his own mech, he was allowed to do anything he wanted. Knock Out held him closely as he said his goodbyes, asking him that he please be safe, and think of his actions. 

He left a week before Jack left for college.

\--

The four of them sat together with the TV on. June was still crying about her son with Agent Fowler’s arm around her shoulder, telling her he was going to have a great time at school. Ratchet was distant, in the back, thinking idly of yet another strange dream of Optimus’ return. Knock Out was in front, the only one truly watching the movie, simply trying to distract himself with anything except the present.


End file.
